@se7en1989: Dude its really not that bad, 10+ hours in and I've only encountered one hilarious glitch so far. The game has otherwise been pretty stable.
@peterhorner1867: In my experience they've alternated from tactically flushing me out with molotovs and flanking me to just standing out in the open and looking at me for five seconds before firing off a shot. I've also had a guy run in circles once, I left him, he's probably still running. Bless his soul.
Its a bit inconsistent haha but I've had them put up an alright challenge 80% of the time so far.
@butterworth: Just got revenge on the first guy at the theme park. What a way to go haha.
Have you noticed how Lincoln's eyes change after the big event that puts him on the warpath? Its like he had this lively look about him beforehand, a man filled with hope essentially. Now its just this very empty look, like someone truly put out the fire within him (which makes sense considering what happened haha).
Maybe its just me seeing things, but overall I'm enjoying the game regardless. Hope you're having a good time too man, looking forward to the review.
Okay, 10 hours in and here's some updated impressions for those on the fence:
Mafia fans will certainly be divided on this one, its much more focused on its open world gameplay and a lot of classic Mafia things like having to obey traffic laws and refueling your car at the gas station when its nearly empty are out. The world is still very nicely detailed though and the story is positively Mafia (fans of Vito will also be very pleased with his role in the game)
The main gameplay loop I've experienced so far has basically comprised out of taking over rackets (which is a whole bunch of missions on its own) and doing missions for your "assets" (people in power you ally with basically) who in turn offer you cool services like a mobile arms dealer or the ability to disable nearby phones so people don't call the cops or backup. You do all this till you can basically start a story mission which involves getting revenge on someone on your hit list. There's a small amount of variety present in the whole racket thing to keep things from getting too repetitive but overall just know that this isn't the linear-game-in-a-sandbox experience Mafia 2 was.
Also the Ubisoft thing where you go to a spot and activate a thing so that different things can show up on your map thing is present in this game.
Thus leaving one with the burning question; is this an inferior GTA clone? Not really I say. It may share some of the same gameplay elements but it stops there. Thematically, story-wise and character-wise its a different beast.
The gameplay is standard stuff really, but its executed solidly enough and the fantastic story moments interspersed between all the open world shenanigans more than carry whatever shortcomings the game has. So far I'm loving it.
At the very least it hasn't pulled a Phantom Pain yet where the story has grinded to a halt early on so tedious repetitive gameplay can be front and center only to have it end on such an atrocious note it completely sours what was an otherwise great franchise.
@gamefreak215jd: In my 10 hours thus far I've had one crash, some weird visual bugs (hard to describe, its like random blurry blocks that pop up and disappear again at random spots) and one side mission went hilariously awry when I pitched up and the boat I was supposed to take launched itself along with me into space.
Other than that its been a pretty stable experience, its all small stuff a good patch or two can fix really.
@Berserk8989: Playing on PC haha, I have everything cranked up to full and its working alright. There's some visual bugs though and things look oddly washed out at times but the PC port is quite alright otherwise. I honestly think people are just overreacting about the quality of the port because its locked at 30fps (which is gonna change soon anyway).
Honestly no idea how the PS4 version is haha, soz man.
A fair whack of hours in and just took out my first racket;
Firstly, the gunplay is freaking fantastic. Its brutal, it disgusting, people lie on the ground writhing in pain if its not a solid headshot or point blank hit from a shotgun, and the takedowns you can do border on sadistic (and for a tactical reason too, as it scares other enemies). Each combat scenario I've had thus far can be approached in completely different ways too which is very cool.
The story and presentation is hands down the best part of the game so far though, they've put immense effort into bringing the characters alive and you very quickly get enthralled in the whole story that plays out.
Overall? I went into this with zero expectations as Mafia 2 left me deeply disappointed and this looked like it would follow suite, but so far its surprisingly turning out to be one of my favorite games this year. Its a friggen quality experience thus far I have to say.
@defiler: Lincoln is one helluva badass protagonist though, his no nonsense approach to everything has made for some hilariously brutal encounters in the 5 hours I've played so far.
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